INKOVEMA Podcast „Well through time“
#224 GddZ
10 Requirements for organisational consultants
Counselling as a special service
In conversation with Klaus Eidenschink
Studied theology, psychology and philosophy, graduate theologian, senior coach and trainer (DBVC), Gestalt therapist (DVG), supervisor, alternative practitioner for psychotherapy (unrestricted healing licence according to § 1 HeilprG), managing director of Eidenschink und Partner and the Hephaistos training institute, whose theoretical basis is the metatheory of change.
Contents
Chapter:
0:06 – Welcome to the podcast Gut durch die Zeit
0:45 – Practical requirements for consultants
8:17 – Skills for a counselling system
9:56 – Proximity to education
11:04 – Responsibility in counselling
13:54 – Customer satisfaction and advice
16:11 – Requirements for consultants
18:57 – Tolerance of uncertainty as a competence
30:11 – Symbiosis immunity and self-esteem
30:35 – Understanding pilotage expertise
35:23 – Ambiguity as a strength
37:08 – Understanding paradoxes in counselling
40:29 – Emotional resonance strength
44:56 – The joy of storytelling as a counselling tool
47:11 – Outlook for future publications
49:35 – Thanks and conclusion of the conversation
Summary of content
In this episode of the podcast "Gut durch die Zeit", I focus on the personal requirements for (organisational) consultantsespecially in the areas of mediation, conflict coaching and organisational consulting. Together with Klaus Eidenschink, an experienced organisational consultant and author, we look at the challenges facing consultants in organisations. Our discussions are based on the ten specific requirements that Klaus and his co-author Uli Merkes set out in their book "Decisions without reason" have formulated.
We begin with the discussion that successful consulting goes far beyond simply satisfying the customer. This satisfaction is often used as a measure of success, but we emphasise that true counselling often causes discomfort and uncertainty among clients. In this context, we shed light on Two common misunderstandings in the counselling landscape: the Expert advicewhere the consultant acts as a knowledgeable person and provides advice on Education threatens to degenerate, and the Servicewhere the counsellor Agents of the client. In our understanding, neither approach leads to genuine counselling, as they No independent development promote.
A central point in our conversation is the concept of the counselling system, which is formed from the relationship between counsellor and client. It is crucial that both parties maintain their own rules and identities in order to facilitate a fruitful counselling system. This leads us to the ten requirements for counsellors, which are not only theoretically but also practically relevant. It becomes clear that Uncertainty tolerance is one of the key competences that consultants need to be able to work successfully.
We discuss the Symbiosis immunitywhich enables counsellors to remain independent of their clients' expectations, as well as the importance of self-esteem stability. The counsellor must not become dependent on the client, but must bring their own opinions and impulses to the counselling session. This leads to a genuine interaction that is profitable for both sides.
The Pilotage expertise is another important requirement that we discuss. A good consultant must not only know the waters in which they are operating, but also have the ability to recognise and interpret the signals of their counterpart. We emphasise that real Affinity for surprise and Ambiguity force are essential for consultants to be able to react flexibly and adaptably to the dynamic requirements of consulting situations.
The Emotional resonance strength also plays a central role. Counsellors must be able to perceive and reflect on their own emotions and those of their clients. This results in the potential for deeper insights and the opportunity to open up new perspectives in counselling. Finally, we deal with the topic of The joy of storytellingwhich helps counsellors to clarify complex patterns and situations through stories and analogies.
In the course of the conversation, it becomes clear that the demands placed on counsellors are not only challenging, but also represent an opportunity to reflect on and further develop their own practice. Klaus and I are looking forward to the forthcoming publication of the extended version of his book, which will enable readers to integrate these valuable insights into their own counselling work.
Complete transcription
[0:00]Because customer satisfaction has no relevance whatsoever for successful
[0:06]
Welcome to the podcast Gut durch die Zeit
[0:04]Counselling, to put it bluntly. Welcome to the podcast Gut durch die Zeit, the podcast about mediation, conflict coaching and organisational consulting in the INKOVEMA podcast. I'm Sascha Weigel and I'd like to welcome you to a new episode. This episode will once again deal in depth with the personal requirements of counsellors. I recently spoke to Günter Mohr about competence profiles and the fact that associations and organisations are trying to develop comprehensible, measurable competence profiles for consultants in order to provide reference points for training.
[0:45]
Practical requirements for consultants
[0:46]Today I would like to talk about very practical requirements and challenges for consultants who work in and with organisations.
[0:57]And for this, I have invited a competent expert who has also been here on the podcast before. I'd like to welcome Klaus Eidenschink to the podcast studio. Hello Klaus. Hello Sascha. Klaus, it's not without reason that I've come to you with this topic, because you and your co-author, Uli Merkes, chose the last chapter of the book Entscheidungen ohne Grund (Decisions without reason) to formulate these requirements for consultants again in a very unique way. And you described ten requirements that are not just obvious from the text alone, but are really born out of practice and you also have to have practical experience to understand that these are the cruxes of counselling. That's what I'd like to call it. Before we approach the individual requirements in this way, what was your reason for putting this at the end of the book, after you have dealt with organisations and a view of organisations, to then explicitly focus on the personality of the counsellor in the title and say that this is a very decisive component for the success of counselling? That's a good question.
[2:22]You could actually have written it in the book. I took that from it. The title. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But it's implicit, as you rightly say. It's also true that it's not immediately clear from the text how you get from here to there. That also has to do with the fact that we were actually so regimented in the scope of this booklet. We are currently writing a major new version, which will be almost ten times the size, or at least five times the size. And then important things get lost. If we assume, as we do, that every system, regardless of whether it is a person, relationship, group or organisation, can only change itself, then the fundamental question arises as to why counselling, therapy, coaching and so on is possible at all. Because I can't make you think or feel differently from the outside, if you look at individuals.
[3:21]As a result, a lot is simply done, but little thought is given to how intervention is even possible. There are two common ways of thinking about this, both of which we actually consider to be wrong. And because you then need a third alternative, you end up with these competences, which we will talk about in a moment. So one form of counselling is what is now called expert counselling. In other words, the organisation has some kind of problem and brings in an external management consultancy that is familiar with the area and the client does what the consultants want. In a sense, the client adapts to the consultant's expertise. This is often vouched for by experience, by benchmark knowledge, the competition does this, these are the KPIs for works in this industry and so on and so forth and then the client becomes the consultant's pupil. But then, strictly speaking, if you look at it from a theoretical point of view, it's no longer counselling but education. It's like building skills at school.
[4:34]And education is not a form of counselling? That would be a dividing line. But that's not our topic right now. So I'll leave it at that. And the other dividing line is that the customer has a precise idea of what they want and then buys this service from the so-called consultants. So in this case, the consultant or consultants do what the customer wants.
[5:02]More success or cost savings or whatever. And then, from my point of view, there is no consulting, but the consultant simply becomes the client's slave and leads or does manufacturing, craftsmanship, in other words becomes an extended workbench, if you like, of the organisation. And of course there are cases where both can make sense. So I have nothing against this happening. I just wouldn't call it counselling in either case. So this second form, so to speak, I have now, without taking up the slavish then, but the tax consultant, also the legal advisor, who now, so to speak, carries out the taxes and the tax return. So there's no advice in the narrower sense, no counselling, but I do a service that you would otherwise do on your own. And now it just so happens that I'm self-employed and not an employee. So that would be the marker. The second variant.
[6:08]Yes, exactly the second one. So with the first one, now here with the second one, I'm doing a service for the other one. Exactly. And in both cases there is no consulting because there is no change of pattern in the customer's self-organisation, so to speak. And that would be my definition of counselling. And now you can ask what kind of relationship is needed between counsellors and customers or clients for counselling to take place in this sense, as I have just tried to define it. And this requires something third, so to speak, namely the establishment of a counselling system that runs according to its own rules and laws. In a sense, the in-between or that which is formed.
[7:01]When a client system and a counselling system relate to each other in such a way that both remain free and both relate to each other according to their own rules. And then a counselling system is created, similar to when a husband and wife or two lovers relate to each other and enter into a marriage. Then something third arises. Man, woman or woman, woman or man, man and a marriage. And that's why there are marriage therapists, because strictly speaking, if you're really doing marriage counselling, you're not working with the man and woman or the couple, but with the relationship they have with each other. And this relationship must be able to be established. And if one person gives up, i.e. the client, the customer does what the counsellor wants or the counsellor does what the customer wants, the result is not a relationship, but a symbiosis. And so the counselling system collapses, just as a marriage actually collapses, the moment one determines the other and the other abandons the other.
[8:17]
Skills for a counselling system
[8:16]or those that can be determined. In a way, this is the starting point for the question of what skills advisors need to build an advisory system with clients.
[8:28]And I want to add this aspect, because it seems to me to be important to the other polarity of parenting.
[8:35]Where the drawing is already included and it seems to me that the proximity of leading a relationship to parenting is quite short. Both in marriage, some people do see it as an educational function and many funny films have been made about it. And even in counselling beyond or on this side of professional counselling, I sometimes have the impression that the parenting element is not so far away. So if I take a look at my narrower, so to speak, profession of mediation.
[9:13]There are certainly trends and representatives who emphasise the pedagogical element and not only convey conflict resolution as a mission, but also focus on an educational aspect for later conflicts. And that this is built in, sometimes even in their own self-image. And in coaching or team development settings, I would also not infrequently see the danger of this turning into an educational programme, which then often fails.
[9:56]
Proximity to education
[9:51]It's as good as ever, but that doesn't mean it doesn't get done. I agree with everything you've just said. Yes, this proximity to parenting seems relatively close, but you say that it's important to make sure that you don't get involved in parenting if you want to provide good counselling. Yes, because ultimately you take on too much responsibility. This is appropriate for teachers or parents in relation to children, because they don't have a certain problem horizon that guides their own behaviour in reflection.
[10:28]But it's usually different for adults or organisations. Now it can still be the case that an organisation doesn't know English and therefore has to take English lessons. So that's fine. In that case, I think it's only for the sake of clarity that you should say you're getting a private tutor or attending a course at the adult education centre and not a consultant. So for me, it's simply a matter of conceptual clarity,
[11:04]
Responsibility in counselling
[11:00]which is sometimes not really cultivated in our industry. When I look at this over time and recall the communication training courses that used to be held and the ideas that were circulated there, I would also say that it is a cultivation of counselling that you are both making strong, that wants to develop out of the educational aspects of now you also have to learn to communicate well and have nice I-messages or with the adult I, that you say, no, it's not about such educational measures, hidden and cuddly. It's about a culture of counselling, which is highly demanding on both sides.
[11:42]Yes, yes, education or training, as you have just called it, so to speak, communication training, never refers to the individual case and never to the context.
[11:53]The English teacher doesn't ask in which specific cases, as a rule anyway, in which specific cases do I want to speak English? Do I want to do that on the underground? Do I want to do that at university? Is that what I want on a night out? And accordingly, teaching should actually take place in a very different way, but it is generalised in training and education in a form that makes sense when the customer problem is the individual case of an existing generalisation, where the competence lies with the consultant. But if the customer has a very specific, I'll call it a unique problem, because to a certain extent this form of corporate culture, of management culture.
[12:42]This is because it depends on the market, the product, the personnel, the people in charge and so on. What is needed then is consulting that does not come along with best practice without having spoken to the customer and already knows what is good for an organisation. And it also needs a form of consultancy that doesn't anxiously look at exactly what the customer is satisfied with because it wants a follow-up order. Because the satisfaction of the customer has no relevance whatsoever for successful counselling, to put it bluntly, because the suffering or the need for counselling is often a symptom in itself.
[13:31]So when I ask the homeless man under the Isar Bridge here in Munich what his most urgent problem is and how I can help him, he tells me that he's missing 5 litres of South Tyrolean Bauernfreund. And if I help him to solve this procurement problem, then I have a highly satisfied customer, but certainly no one would be able to help me.
[13:54]
Customer satisfaction and advice
[13:53]say that I had helped him. That's why I'm always a bit baffled as to why customer satisfaction in our industry, i.e. among consultants, is to a certain extent taken without reflection as a criterion for whether good advice has taken place. Because for me at least, good advice always takes place, at least in a certain phase of the advisory process, when the customer is confused, irritated.
[14:19]She is also unsettled and says, "Gosh, if I had known that, I wouldn't have started at all, it doesn't feel comfortable at all. Things come to light that I didn't really want to know and so on and so forth. If this is not seen as a success of counselling, that the client or the client system is labelled, then that is the Kurt Lewin principle, unfreeze, change, refreeze. And this unfreeze is rarely pleasurable. In your experience, are you much better equipped to ensure that customer satisfaction is seen as a quality feature of the consultancy or simply as a starting point for references and further recommendation programmes? That too, of course, but as I said, I only really like to be recommended by customers who have gone through the process. Thank you is the right word. So before you recommend me, ask me first. Yes, exactly.
[15:30]And that's exactly what we give them in the recommendation. It's not always pleasant with them, but in the end something sensible comes out of it. and I wouldn't want to miss it or we wouldn't want to miss it. No straight way to paradise and actually everyone knows that. It's just that people like to believe promises that spare them this intermediate step. It's often said that everything has to be easy today and that of course contradicts our experiences or even previous realities,
[16:11]
Requirements for consultants
[16:08]that work and success only happens by the sweat of one's brow. This change is already clear and I would therefore also, because I believe we have worked out well what you are concerned with, if you are almost making this consulting approach strong, what this means for the individual consultant now. Because for the counsellor.
[16:29]It's not that easy now either. He can't just do what he's always done, he has to bring ten requirements with him, at least to some extent, let me put it very carefully, so that everyone here doesn't stop listening straight away. And it seems to me that, in one way or another, it's also quite a disciplinary programme, because you have to deal very counterintuitively with phenomena and things that you can hear or evoke in counselling.
[17:00]So what you say about clients also applies to counsellors. So think carefully about whether you want to do good counselling. You will be confronted with some things that you may not have thought you would have to deal with. But to be honest, your caution at the beginning of your reaction is in honour. But I think we counsellors generally charge daily rates where you can expect that you have already dealt with a few unpleasant feelings or challenges in life yourself and are able to practice what you ask of the client in the sense of Walk the Talk. And I believe that those who do this also know what they have achieved in return. Yes, and to be honest, I'm saying this quite selfishly. I know colleagues from supervision or therapy who at some point can no longer listen to themselves talk or are bored with what they are doing and how the projects are going because the roadmaps are somehow copied and pasted from one project to another. And then you've already experienced this type of control meeting umpteen times and so on and so forth.
[18:21]And I personally have never been bored at work for a second in my life. But that also has to do with the fact that I never do the same thing, but that I, or rather we, experience every situation anew and get involved in the here and now. And that keeps life, or working life in this case, simply exciting. And for this reason alone, I would highly recommend working in this way and not according to some kind of scheme or plan that I then believe in,
[18:57]
Tolerance of uncertainty as a competence
[18:56]to be able to make the customer happy. And that becomes clear when you look at the ten requirements, which I would like to do with you now, at least at one point or another, because the title alone is not only imaginative, but also precisely formulates what it's all about. Do you have a favourite requirement that you want to start with? Nope, I think it's quite realistic at the time.
[19:25]So we can just go through it in order, because if we have just under half an hour or something like that, we can get through the ten points. And actually, I'm more interested in not leaving out any of the ten, because this isn't really a closed list. I could also add a few other points, but these are the ten most important ones that came to mind, or that can simply be deduced from everything in this book. Then we take the order from the book. That also makes it easy for the listeners. And we start with tolerance of uncertainty. Uncertainty as a characteristic of our time must be tolerated.
[20:12]Where is it a very relevant competence for counsellors, whose problem is not the issue in counselling? Yes, because uncertainty is actually another word for curiosity or openness.
[20:27]So at the moment when I am certain inside, I have some kind of plan for how things will continue. Some kind of idea, an expectation of what will happen in the future so that I can somehow act on it. So I'm preoccupied with feasibility. And at that moment, I'm almost at the educator's side. If, on the other hand, I assume that I am confident in dealing with uncertainty, then the customer doesn't have to be happy with my intervention. Then I might do a workshop and be surprised to realise that something completely different has come out of it than I wanted. Even something that I might not like and so on and so forth. In a way, counselling takes place in the back and forth between me setting an impulse and getting a reaction and then having another impulse of my own. And this oscillation is simply dependent on the fact that I am not internally fixed. The old systemic principle for interventions is that I know what I have done or said after I have received the response from the client. This openness to reactions that are not at all in my field of expectation can be described quite well with the heading of uncertainty tolerance as an inner attitude.
[21:55]Hey, you here listening to this podcast, if you like it, why don't you press five stars and leave some feedback so that others who haven't listened to or found the podcast yet can do so. And now we’ll continue with the episode in the podcast well through time. So that would also be this direction for me, what happens in counselling? I can't plan that in advance down to the last detail. But I also found this term important in terms of what works. In other words, what comes out for the counsellor. And in mediation we also have this very explicitly and you can often hear from mediators that we take no responsibility for this, that we don't know whether mediation will be successful. And when I listen to them, I get the impression that they are not tolerant of uncertainty, but rather that they take the initiative. They are freeing themselves and creating a psychological sense of security that can ultimately be reduced to a very banal conclusion. I'm there, I'm somehow involved, but I actually have no influence at all.
[23:09]Yes, exactly. And that is of course wrong and also wrong, because first of all you are, so to speak, setting yourself apart from a security that is unfavourable and never existed anyway. Then you leave people in the dark, so to speak. So uncertainty, like security, can of course also become dysfunctional. That's why it was just so important to me to say that uncertainty, as it is meant here.
[23:33]It has to be paraphrased with terms like openness or curiosity or letting yourself be surprised by what happens. Yes, I find that absolutely fitting. The second is sympathy-immunity. In other words, that we don't become dependent or, if I look at the content, that we develop strategies to work our way out of sympathy without brutally cutting it off. So it goes like this, or perhaps in my own words, I'll say how I understood it. No, no, no, I'm listening to you carefully because I think the way you describe it is very apt. There is perhaps a brief sidekick to this. There are different forms of symbiosis. I'll call them first-order symbioses in the context of transactional analysis, where behaviour is the symbiotic medium, so to speak. So one person wants to be admired, the other gives admiration and feels good about it, if they can admire someone, then both are served. And the client wants advice and the counsellor gives the advice and then both are served.
[24:51]Superficially. And then there are second-order symbioses that are not based on action, but on feeling. So the sentence would be, I can only feel good if you feel good and if you feel bad, I have to feel bad myself. Symbiosis immunity simply means that I can still feel good even if the customer is dissatisfied with me. Or I can be very dissatisfied if the customer is satisfied. This willingness to be uncomfortable is something that really needs to be learnt, because the moment you don't meet the expectations of others, almost everyone comes into contact with very basic, personal, psychological patterns. Because it is a survival strategy for all children to respond to their parents' expectations in some way and to orientate themselves towards them. And accordingly, expectations, i.e. customer satisfaction expectations, are a stimulus for counsellors to slip into regressive, non-adult inner patterns.
[26:13]And that's why it's so important to have dealt with it more intensively. Yes, I'll use that again as an example for mediators.
[26:21]Who base their own well-being and woe on finding or not finding solutions to conflicts and also - and this brings us back to quality of work - judge their work on whether they find a solution. Measured, yes. Measured, yes, exactly. Exactly, that's a good example and then it depends.
[26:43]Is at least at risk in his counselling identity. I also use mediation because the task of finding a solution is so clear there and sometimes it's not possible to do this in such a focussed way in other settings. But it always becomes quite clear here. And that's also where the point of self-esteem stability comes in, which you've already mentioned. I am then in danger, and this is actually a good indicator of sympathetic phenomena, when I feel attacked in my self-worth, when I have supposedly failed to fulfil these expectations and I then ask myself, am I actually doing the right thing? To put it bluntly, I would say that every good consultation can be recognised by the fact that at some point in the process you receive criticism and reproaches from the customer. So it's actually a paradox, not satisfaction, but because the elements, the impulses, the factions, the interest groups that are responsible for this in the customer or also the inner emotional parts that have created the undesirable state from which the counselling was requested, naturally react with sensitivities at some point. And I didn't want to use Adessat now. I wanted my liver not to suffer, but I actually wanted to carry on drinking.
[28:09]We can talk about that for a long time.
[28:13]But only if I'm allowed to water it, please. Exactly, if I am allowed to maintain control over my behaviour. Accordingly, it is a core competence for counsellors not to view criticism as something automatic, as something that gives rise to independent, critical self-reflection, but rather to inform me of where the customer's or client's sensitivities lie. And in this way, my information about the stability of unfavourable patterns continues to increase. Because it's precisely when the customer is angry, disappointed, reproachful or just doesn't understand in a mild way and says, so what's this all about? So the shot has completely backfired. We can't write an email to everyone and so on and so forth.
[29:17]Then I don't get information about the poor quality of my email draft, but about what causes sensitivities in the client. And if I can't then say, self-esteem stable, oh, leave us there. I find that interesting. With other organisations, it's no problem at all to write an email like this, what does it tell us that you get all excited when you read a text like this from me?
[29:48]And also, and I think this is an important point that you raise, to remain in the questioning position and then not see the customer's criticism as confirmation that you are on the right track. Or the other way round, yes, exactly. So I can either become inappropriately self-critical or inappropriately self-assured. Both are wrong.
[30:11]
Symbiosis immunity and self-esteem
[30:09]Yes, I find that very appropriate. And on the subject of addiction, in transactional analysis this is only a background to the Sympiose concept, which was also developed directly for addiction therapies. So it fits in very well there. So just that these casual words here are not misunderstood at one point or another. Should listeners have switched on after all.
[30:35]
Understanding pilotage expertise
[30:36]Klaus, I particularly liked the next one, because it can also be quickly misinterpreted, the pilot competence, for very important counselling competence, but probably did not mean knowing where to go, but the pilot has another task.
[30:55]The pilot knows where and how to sound. This is not necessarily in contrast to the fact that he knows the waters in which he is travelling. But he is never complacent about this, it's about being careful and sounding out precisely. What is in the right place, because sandbanks also move in the fjords or in the harbour basin and so on and so forth. And that's why pilots are characterised by a high level of perception and a particular wealth of antennae, as well as a particular sensitivity to weak signals. This is because the moment I have this, I am sensitive to the diverse interests in organisations or client systems. Then I don't have to conjure up solutions, but rather humbly feel my way towards what could succeed in the next step.
[31:55]Yes, I always find the paradox remarkable that those who know their way around the sea or the mountains best are the most careful and the ones who urge caution the most. This should actually give everyone pause for thought that those who do this frequently are particularly careful when they are. Yes, yes, beginners and experts are particularly careful. I've been travelling in the mountains a lot now, with avalanches and so on and so forth. The people who are most at risk are those who have done one or two avalanche courses and then think they have mastered the terrain.
[32:32]An affinity for surprises is part of what makes a good consultant. I don't really find that immediately obvious, although of course I often experience surprises with consultations. But what do you mean by developing affinity? Well, that you enjoy obstacles, the unplanned, the unexpected. Ultimately, this is a concept that has also developed close to this research on High Reliability Organisations. So keyword Carl Wey, Catelyn, Suscliffe, unexpected management, still one of the most readable books on consulting, where the unexpected is not the undesirable or the surprising is not the disruptive, but an indication of possible new patterns, of possible new response options. Talek has formulated this in a thick book with this image of the black swan. An essay would have sufficed, but ultimately this interest in... I am now writing another book that is five times as thick. That's allowed. If the content is good, you can say more. Yes, okay.
[33:50]So it's actually a bit of a different word, just for curiosity. And if you know, you don't need to be curious. They already know. The old paradox of learning and knowledge is that we actually want to be familiar with it. But keeping an open mind is an art. So it needs to be cultivated. I once had a surgeon tell me how important this is to him. Because as a surgeon, when you've operated on a hip joint or a heart valve 5,000 times, it's easy to believe that all hips are the same. It's really not easy for surgeons of this type to reckon with potential surprises with every operation, to not allow routine procedures. And he told me at the time that that's why he travels with the Sankar from time to time as an emergency doctor, because as an emergency doctor you're constantly dealing with surprises in order to practise coping well with unknown situations. That's a good, helpful tip.
[35:11]Ambiguity power would be number 6. Ambiguity, tolerance and the like are often propagated now, but with you the ambiguity power is.
[35:23]
Ambiguity as a strength
[35:24]Yes, exactly. And we've sharpened it up a bit, because tolerance is so close to, I have to today because there's no other way, something like that. But Kraft simply emphasises the aspect of the phenomenon again, where he doesn't see ambiguity as a disadvantage or a problem of reality, but as a protection against becoming simple-minded, one-dimensional. Where consensus is supposedly better than conflict or speed is more important than perseverance.
[36:04]Or opportunities are better than dead ends and so on and so forth, then you get lost in one-dimensional right-wrong thinking, in a polarity where one pole is to be striven for and the other avoided. And that is hardly ever the case in organisations, because you always have to deal with value conflicts. Sensitivity, time-to-market is simply not compatible with quality leadership in the sense of thoroughness. Accordingly, I always have a trade-off when making these decisions. So I gain something and I lose something at the same time. And that takes strength. This juxtaposition and realisation that the values and the pairs of opposites cannot be dissolved, but should be kept in consciousness or in communication, or in clarity. I think that is also worth the special value.
[37:00]of your approach, which runs through the entire book. And I'll pick up on the tenth, because it fits in.
[37:08]
Understanding paradoxes in counselling
[37:07]We'll come back to the others as well. The understanding of paradoxes. In other words, developing an understanding that both are right, even if only one can be decided or only one can be decided in favour of. And that it is not an absolute deselection, but that it remains an undecidable decision that cannot be overridden. Yes, that is even a bit sharper than you are formulating it now. It's not just that, as we have both just formulated it, I choose one good thing and give up the other good thing, so to speak, and in doing so I am simply accepting a disadvantage, but that I, paradoxes, so to speak, are different from polarities, or polarities, if they are paradoxes, are characterised by the fact that if I choose one thing, I can't get the opposite out of the field. It remains effective.
[38:07]So if the right thing, exactly, that was a word for it, if the right thing is always wrong at the same time and the supposedly wrong thing remains in play, or the wrong thing in the right thing and the good thing in the wrong thing, so that I can never escape this paradox. And that is simply a way of thinking that is now particularly prevalent in organisations, but I think in our culture as a whole, which is simply very science-driven and engineer-driven in a practical way, believing that it is possible to calculate a clear and simple solution for every problem, like two and two is four. And that was four yesterday, four today will be four tomorrow. That's four for you, four for me and four for everyone else. The questions that you have to deal with in real life.
[39:07]Are not clearly resolvable in their form, but rather ambiguous or even contradictory. And this is something that consultants not only need to know, but also include in their own service promise. A colleague on LinkedIn recently wrote about this and quoted a client in a workshop, in a team development session or something, who said that, with regard to the last reorganisation, it was promised that everything would get better. And in reality, it just got bad in a different way. Or bad in a new way. And I think that's a really smart and clever sentence that really gets to the heart of the matter. Slipping into cynicism is the great danger. The great danger, but if it's not meant cynically, but simply as a description of what has happened, it's wise. Yes, exactly. We could also take the ambiguities and contradictions or ambiguities here. And we have to take a stand on how we want to understand it or how it can be understood. And both remain possible there. I'm still looking at what we haven't mentioned yet.
[40:29]
Emotional resonance strength
[40:29]Emotional resonance strength.
[40:33]Emotions are very important these days anyway. Not because they are emotions, but because it is so crucial to keep a counselling system alive that we relate to each other. And the essential medium in which we humans as psychological systems relate to our environment is simply emotions. Someone walks through the forest and says, is that a beautiful forest? So in a way, we react to everything, to people, to exhibitions, to art, to nature.
[41:08]To music, to parties and the like, emotionally. Of course, an explanatory word is important. Which is also important to me, because you associate the mental systems with the emotions and I agree with you, but it is important to me that, because emotions are often placed in opposition to the head.
[41:29]Perhaps you could say a word about how you take feelings and the mental system independently of the body. I think that's a systemic idea that not everyone immediately follows.
[41:40]Yes, that would of course be a wide-ranging topic that you are now opening up, but to allay your concerns about a misunderstanding. No, resonance is really meant here in a holistic sense, as they say, where I sometimes feel a certain kind of discomfort, almost as if I'm latently nauseous. Even if I just take in the interior design of the meeting room. And that's something I take seriously as a consultant. So what does that tell me? The fact that the rooms are furnished in this way or that a certain dress code is maintained, regardless of what it looks like. Experiencing this, purely physically, in other words developing a feeling for it and then reflecting on this feeling. In other words, do I resonate more with my own antipathies or sympathies or is it a reaction to the customer or the organisation. That is the competence that is needed. However, what is primarily meant here by emotional resonance is that I simply have a very differentiated and broad field of perceptual possibilities and also such unpleasant feelings as fear, shame and guilt.
[43:01]I can allow caution, sadness and the like to be part of me and I am not limited to supposedly pleasant feelings. And give it space. And with that comes the willingness to reflect and be irritated. And that also means your own willingness to be irritated. So not going into a counselling session with overconfidence is probably only one aspect of the whole thing. Yes, but perhaps it's a very important one and it's also important to maintain this in the process. It's not a state, but one that has to be constantly revitalised by observing yourself and allowing yourself to be irritated not only by the customer, but also by yourself. So when would I be impatient? When would I be annoyed? When would I be know-it-all? When would I be cautious, when would I keep my mouth shut even though I have something to say and so on and so forth. Just to name a few examples. If you think in terms of systems theory and no more, you can no longer use reason in the singular, but then there is no longer reason as with Habermas, which can then ultimately lead to a consensus for all.
[44:22]But there are rational people. This automatically means that every person, even as a counsellor, is partially blind, ignorant, resonance-inhibited, careless and so on and so forth. So everyone has a blind spot, to put it quite simply, using a phrase that has become established. And to not just carry this blind spot around in front of you as a nice speech bubble, but to continuously reflect on how it is actualised and has an effect, that is what is meant by a willingness to reflect and irritate.
[44:56]
The joy of storytelling as a counselling tool
[44:56]Then we have one last point with the joy of storytelling. Yes, it's actually quite nice that you're finishing now. We've proven that. So we have. But what does that mean? It's not just being a nice conversationalist or reader, it's one of the things that's been described most comprehensively and briefly, but there's more to it for you. Here we are with this ambiguity and ambivalence story and also with this holistic approach. Counselling is not a logical process, but at least to the same extent, if not more, an analogue event where much more is captured, where it is about pattern recognition and not about calculation. And this way of describing patterns has been around for ages.
[45:51]It is not passed on from generation to generation in wisdom teachings through pedagogical concepts, through lists of truths, but very much through formats such as parables, similes, sketches, stories and so on. And it's not for nothing that there are colleagues who specialise solely in this and offer their services under the heading of storytelling. Or when some theatre people demonstrate to the organisation how things are done in their meetings or improv theatre is performed and the like. That would be on the level of tools and techniques. But in a way, the function is to present something to the customer that is not unambiguous, but requires interpretation, that offers projection surfaces that the customer can then fill in, because I then also receive information about it. And we think it's really important for a consultant to have this ability to turn a certain situation into a parable, a comparison or a simile.
[47:11]
Outlook for future publications
[47:11]Klaus, these are the ten requirements that you have formulated and I was pleased to note that you will be doing this again in more detail in a publication in the near future or soon. Well, sooner rather than later. Can you already say something about… Yes. Yes? Okay, that means I…
[47:37]So the book is in the works and will probably be published next spring. So with all the imponderables that come with announcements about when a book will be published.
[47:53]Very nice. And we will be looking forward to it. Yes, of course I hope so.
[48:02]And back then we suffered a lot from having to formulate ourselves in such sometimes absurd brevity. And now the publishers have not only given us the opportunity, but also an explicit request to come up with something that is really almost like a textbook on how to think about people and organisations together on a meta-theoretical level, and that will be one of the special features of the book today.
[48:32]From mine View from unfavourable Shape from system-theoretical Visibility, one only on the Ratios looks and tried, the Formal structures the Organisation to edit, what Important and right is, but the Environment the Organisation, namely we People, one just as large Role play and also here even necessary is, the reciprocal Coupling processes itself there more accurate to look at, so that also to the other and perhaps also a little one new Understanding from Guidance and so more to come. About this work we straight intensive and there happy I me also on it, when the in one debatable, printed Shape then in the Colleagues to the Knowledge taken become can. So, I am Yes a Friend from thick books, but found these compressed Shape extreme profitable and white, what the for one Labour made has. Yes, yes, the is one Work. I believe, becomes the now a Pleasure be, the Unfold to may.
[49:33]I hope it and wish it also, that you it in the last years are.
[49:35]
Thanks and conclusion of the conversation
[49:36]Yes, yes, so is it already also. Since have you right, Sascha. Klaus, many Thanks to. Many Thanks to for the Explanations to this Aspect. The was very informative and very instructive. Many Thanks to in favour. I Thank you you for yours marvellous Art, so a Conversation to design. I wish you one good Time. Yes, whole on my part. The was my Conversation with the Organisational consultant and Coach Klaus Eidenschink, Instructor also in Munich resident in the Hephaestus Institute and Founder the Meta-Theory the Change. We have in the Book, the he published has with his Colleagues Uli Merkes, the Requirements on Mediators discussed and not only on Mediators, but also on Organisational consultant and Consultant generally and clarifies has Klaus in clear, concise ten Requirements, what it on more personal The challenge means, in Organisations for and also with Organisations to advise.
[50:41]We are entered with one Profiling one counselling approach, the itself but further developed has or at least authoritative differentiates from the classic Performances one Consultancy, the their Starting point in the Specialist counselling has.
[50:58]Where so the Expert one Advice issued resp. Says and white, like it goes and the then for the Organisation in Shape one Service carries out. The Organisation could so these Kind the Activity also itself shopping and integrate in their Organisational structures, but it becomes frequently outsourced. We had the Example Tax consultancy, Legal advice. And on the other Page one Consultancy, the but rather a Educate is and educational pedagogical Elements realised and the for Klaus and his Colleagues also and for the Counselling approach rather not preferable is, but one Counselling on Eye level establish, with the it so not at one Education goes, but at one Relationship build up, with the all Participants full autonomous about the own Problems, about the own Problem definitions the Sovereignty keep and about the Exchange about it new Perspectives Win and one independent Learning process apply.
[52:09]For the The challenges for the Consultant is clear become, that the one Balancing act is and always the Danger is, to slip in a Expert behaviour, in a Expertise it better to know or in the other Page the Clients educate to want and light on him to look down. I hope, the is clear become and You and Yours, love Listener and Listeners.
[52:34]Could this Episode something from it. And when the so is, look forward to we us of course, when Yours one Like gives and one Comment leaves, With pleasure also Enquiries provides, so that we the Topic again take up. For the Moment thank you I me with you and yourselves, that her here with thereby maintained at the Podcast Good through the Time, that her this Podcast through yours Attention supported. And I wish you everything Good and wish the Best. Yours Sascha, host this Podcasts and Founder from Incrofilma, the Institute for Conflict and Negotiation management here in Leipzig and Partner for professional Mediation and Coaching training.
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